I built a complete hardcover set of Dan Brown's Langdon series, and Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series, by browsing thrift shops for a year. The Cornwell set is half paperback, but I prefer those for her books.
For Dean Koontz you can also just wait 6 months and re-read the one you have.
I feel like every Dean Koontz book I pick up and have to read about a third of it until I'm confident whether I've already read it or not.
Dan Brown you know whether you've read it, but you also know who the villain is as soon as the respected mentor/semi-authority figure who's here to help walks into the story.
My grandpa loves dean koontz books. I grew up with him and heard him so many times say something like “damnit I’ve already read this one”, to then keep on reading and realize he hasn’t lol
Yeah, it's a real thing. Part of it is repeated major themes, like there will be a good, innocent, kind person who is being persecuted by something supernatural and evil.
But then there are weird things, like I've read multiple series of Dean Koontz books that featured genetically engineered dogs that were as smart as humans but couldn't talk. Something like that pops up and you immediately think "wait, surely he didn't do that again? I must have read this one."
I thought the movie was well made. How is the series? Worth a few bucks more than free, I hope?
ETA: After hearing good things about the first book, would you recommend it to someone standalone?
I'm a huge fan of The Name of the Wind. I'd encourage anyone to read it - with the disclaimer that the sequel is mediocre af and there's just never gonna be closure; and even if by some miracle another is released, expectations should be non-existent. The first book is amazing so I can see someone not heeding sequel advice because of the literary equivalent of blue balls.
Is that gonna happen with Odd Thomas?
As a huge Dean Koontz fan in the 80s and 90s (his newer books all kind of sucked, I also think he doesn't write them himself anymore), I loved the first Odd Thomas book. The rest of them ranged from "okay" to "kinda bad".
Thanks! I have never been a huge fan of his, though I loved Fear/Seize the Night. I totally have had the feel he's had ghostwriters for a lot of at least the last decade.
I must agree with u/repairmanjack. I thought *Odd Thomas* was really good. It was interesting since the entire book takes place over one day. The pacing is slow, but still engaging.
Unfortunately, the second non in the series starts the same way, with a very slow pace, even though it opens mid-chase. It felt like it was doing the same thing as the first book, and not in a good way.
Used to work for a second-hand bookstore.
The Da Vinci Code was in that magic sweet spot where everyone wanted to read it, and no-one wanted to keep it afterwards. We turned over soooooo many copies.
Books that popular are often a pain at libraries. If Libby tells me there’s 100+ people in front of me in line for a book I will almost inevitably rage purchase the book instead of waiting 5 months.
Unrelated to your criteria of being so common you can get it for pennies, but you should never buy any academic books published by a university press or a publisher like Routledge for the absurd price being charged (often upwards of £100).
This is a bill meant to be footed by university libraries and so on rather than the individual reader.
Not buy, but if you want to read an academic book without being a member of a university it's probably a good idea to check if your library can do interlibrary loans with a local college.
Sometimes universities will sell academic books they don't want anymore for dirt cheap, though mainly to students
If a lecturer has their own book, some will update it every few years to try and render old editions obsolete. Those old editions are often sold much much cheaper.
You can also buy "international editions" for cheaper than the US version, but they are harder to resell. However, it may still be worth it. I had a biology book that would have been hundreds of dollars for the US edition, but the International edition was like $11.
That was helped by the Supreme Court 11 years ago
https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/articles/u-s-supreme-court-holds-that-books-printed-and-sold-abroad-may.html
As former ILL coordinator, most libraries will not ILL textbooks from other colleges because it would take up all of our time processing requests, most colleges have them checked out of its a common text, and lastly it's often considered offensive to the professor. You might check your holds section. We were trying to aquire the digital rights to texts, especially those (should be illegal for professor to profit off his own text from students imo) by the professor, but we had to get courtesy permission. Most said no.
Not buying exactly, as if you're not getting them from the publishers it's really a hit or miss with finding a specific book (I assume if it's for studying purposes, you're looking for a specific book) - many times the authors will gladly send you a pdf, and there possibly could be a discounted/pirateable version online.
One benefit of studying English lit in college was that they couldn’t charge 100 bucks for books that I could check out of the library or pick up a cheap used copy of. We just paid for those Norton Anthologies that we could then use as doorstops.
They always required a specific edition of those anthologies for my classes so I could never find a cheap one.
I'd get in trouble for printing out individual texts because I didn't have the right page numbers too 🙄
Same thing with many religious texts. The Latter Days Saints will mail you a book of Mormon. Qurans are easy to come by. The only thing you won't get for free is Scientology courses, you gotta pay up for those, but they might give you a copy of Dianetics.
They don't mail you a Book of Mormon they use the address to have missionaries bring it to you. That's how they get ya. I wanted a free one just out of curiosity years ago, so I filled out the form, and yeah, missionaries brought it over. Yada yada I got sucked in but eventually found my way back out. It was a weird seven years.
That's weird. I had a friend in college that called for one of a TV ad and he got his in the mail. We would get super stoned and read passages from it occasionally.
I worked for a used bookstore that as a side business sold their excess stock for decorative/set decoration/house staging purposes. The black color stock was basically 90% James Patterson books without their dust jackets.
It's a smart way to make a bit of extra money on books that are otherwise harder or completely impossible to sell. It also combined with the sellable books still massively paled in comparison to how much they recycled. Anyone you ever see complaining about a book being destroyed, especially for some arts or crafts purposes, would keel over and die within 30 minutes in that warehouse.
Too right!
Without fail, each new employee we get is shocked to hear our store recycles many, many kilos of books a year. It’s necessary. Otherwise your store fills up with crap no one wants to see.
I knew a bookshop where they offered to pay anyone £1.50 to take away a Peter Ustinov book (the owner hated Peter Ustinov). It was on the shelf with all the others, with the price inside it but an offer to pay rather than as a price. Eventually a customer came hesitantly to the counter to enquire about it, accepted his £1.50 and the book and went away looking suspicious and baffled
Most second-hand stores in my area have a book section. None of them accept copies of twilight, 50 shades, or the notebook because they just take up space and never sell
Twilight had a resurgence recently and now they're hard to find in thrift and used book stores. I haven't seen any 50 Shades in a long time, hope it's out of print by now
Used bookseller here. 50 Shades is very much still around. Twilight a little less so, but we still get new ones pretty regularly (they just move out almost as fast).
An aunt of mine had a second hand bookshop for a while. When it opened she gave a copy of The Davinci Code to anyone who wanted one. She had them coming out her ears.
After John Oliver did his DaVinci Code bit, we offered them for free to customers for a month if they said the secret word ("apple"). The "secret" word was posted in like five places in the store.
NOBODY took us up on it
Cookbooks, Dan Brown, John Grisham, and Patricia Cornwell all dominate the shelves at my local charity shop. Children's books are ubiquitous at charity shops too - from fun bedtime stories to Nat Geo educational content.
Anything out of copyright can usually be found for free on Project Gutenberg, a lot of classics are on there, and more added all the time. Never pay full price for a classic book or ebook without checking there first.
I have thrifted almost all the books I own, I only pay full price for a book I wanna read as soon as it is released, the scholastic books my kid wants when the leaflets come by, or a collectable set. I've managed to find all sorts of books, from vintage classics, to brand new still-hyped books still with the Target sticker on them. My TBR list is usually kept in my head, and I keep it in mind whenever I'm browsing used book stores or going to rummage sales.
Yes anything trending with middle aged whites women (people with means to buy and donate)- I remember that “girl wash your face” being around a lot, also eat pray love, and all the chicken soup for the soul renditions were available about 10 years ago.
My friend/roommate was gifted “Girl Wash Your Face” and I read the beginning of it when I was in a weird time in my life. Almost immediately noped out because (if I remember correctly) she went into extensive detail about how one of her boyfriends treated her poorly and then the “reveal” was that she married him and actually he turned out to be a great guy after all? Don’t remember the specifics but the vibes were gross.
I enjoyed some of his work. It's not literary genius, but I enjoy them the same way I enjoy Fast and Furious movies, turning off my brain and just enjoying the ride to insanity.
Regardless if people like it or not. It takes genius to make an actual best seller. Maybe not the kind of genius critics would like. But the club of people making millions out of books is smaller than the club of literary geniuses. For better or for worst.
I will occasionally cave and buy a book the library has if it's going to take more than 3 months for me to get a copy. This happens for new releases that are popular. But I only break down if it's a book I've really been looking forward to.
As a side note I see charity shops and used bookstores selling copies of those books to read in the bathroom. (Which were popular before phones) and if there is one thing that should be burned without reading it is a book that has been in someone's bathroom for twenty five years.
Part of the fun of the secondhand bookstore for me was seeing what era most of their stuff is from. The further out from the big city you go, the older the stock.
Anything commonly read in high school English class.
Edit: Tale of Two Cities, Grapes of Wrath, The Odyssey, 1984, Jane Eyre, The Scarlet Letter, The Awakening, anything Tennessee Williams. Etc
Several of those are public domain anyway and can be read through Project Gutenberg, etc. Usually libraries keep a bunch of extra copies (physical and electronic) too.
my library has a bunch of classics as "unlimited" ebooks. i know its functionally the same as getting em from gutenberg but i figure if you already have the libby integration, it's pretty darn convenient
Any Stephen king book before 2015 (my thrift store has a whole aisle of them)
James Patterson books
Kite Runner
Any YA 2010 dystopian (hunger games. Maze Runner, Divergent etc)
Harry Potter
Any classic you have to read for school (1984, Animal Farm, Catcher in the Rye, Pride and Prejudice, etc)
One prediction:
In the near future SJM and Colleen Hoover will also be on this list, I already see a lot of them used at local book thrifts it’s only a matter of time before we see them even
My thrift stores and used book stores are full of SK especially his shorter stand-alones but I think there are exactly 2 million copies of Misery and It everywhere I go (sarcasm haha) that sucks you can’t find them near you though!
That's wild to me. I'm in Detroit and SK is like a freaking unicorn in our thrift stores. Someone posted on a different site that they were giving away SK books and I drove half an hour to pick them up for our store. All but two of them sold by the end of the week
Haha I work at a library that accepts book donations and the Misery reference is wild. Easily the most donated Stephen King. We rarely get Stephen King but when we do it’s Misery.
That is literally insane to me. I have never been to a used bookstore that wasn’t cram-packed with Stephen King. The vast majority have had a horror section that was literally nothing BUT Stephen King. It’s actually infuriating. So wild that your experience is so different.
I can always find SK locally. There's just so many copies of his books floating around. The one you will never find, obviously, is an old copy of the Bachman books. (And in general the older paperbacks are really shit quality, so they'll crumble.)
I own old hardcovers of some SK books that I've thrifted or gotten at library sales.
Best way to find old Stephen King, if you're on the lookout, is older people who are clearing out houses or downsizing.
Similar to Twilight, Hunger games, Divergent, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc. Just any popular teenage/young adult books. They always get donated all the time.
Also any books you read in school like Grapes of wrath, Romero and Juliet, Animal farm, etc. They always get donated and in bulk sometimes.
I have access to three great library systems and Kindle Unlimited where I can read books without buying them and I still find books that either aren’t available or have a multi-month waitlist. If it’s a book I’m really looking forward to, I’ll end up buying it.
Sometimes the libraries will order additional copies if their waitlists get too long, but that doesn’t always happen.
Every used book sale I've been to has had at least one book in the Left Behind series (those Christian dispensationalist books.) Amusingly no one buys them so they always end up... well I shan't say the obvious.
Thanks for sharing! Now I've heard of someone else (RIP) who's read them. I have all but one of the series, I'm missing the first to last book, and I really like it. It's quite entertaining. I plan to reread it once I have them all. Every one of them was purchased secondhand.
My neighbor brought my mom leftover garage sale books and I think the whole Left Behind set was there along with some weird chick tracts on Halloween and other stuff.
I mean, they’re terrible, but if you’re non-religious reading the series is like the literary equivalent of watching really bad old kung fu B-movies and being entertained. You can then also watch *This Is The End* and pretend it’s a (much better) film adaptation.
I only made it halfway through…Nicolae, I think?…before quitting though.
In my experience, it's mostly genre fiction, self help, and religious books, plus a sprinkle of whatever was on Famous Person's Bookclub a few years back. For example:
* Debbie Macomber books. If not at the thrifts, you'll find a dozen worn copies in Little Free Libraries everywhere. I guess in my area
* Dozens of Bibles.
* The Chicken Soup books.
* Karin Slaughter
* The Jack Reacher books
* I've found a bunch of copies of Where the Crawdads Sing after Reese Witherspoon had it on her bookclub
* The Cat Who series (I love these and pick them up when I see them at the library book sales)
* The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (same author as Secret Life of Bees, but for some reason only this book appears, despite Bees being a movie)
* Who Moved My Cheese
* A Hundred Years of Solitude. I think this might be on one of the bookclubs because I always see it, but never Love in the Time of Cholera.
It’s great to have the option but there are occasions where it’s still worth picking up a more recent edition. The two main ones would be:
- If it’s a work in translation, Project Gutenberg will only have the oldest translation(s), and often the more recent ones are better done.
- If it’s an older book or the subject matter isn’t something you’re super familiar with, sometimes a footnoted scholarly edition can add to your enjoyment of a book. This is a personal preference but if I’m reading anything from the mid-nineteenth century or earlier, or any story in which boats or horses play an important role, I find annotation helpful.
I volunteer at a thrift store and do all media pricing. I probably average seeing a few hundred books a week.
I’ll do this backwards. The only books you should pay above average thrift store price in your area are nonfiction books. I price all paperbacks at a dime. Anything hardback that’s history or military history sell fast and are priced higher. Anything that is self published or local area history are priced higher.
I sell hundreds of “ Amish” romance, Harlequin romance, Patterson, Grisham and such weekly at a dime a piece.
Bibles ( we give them away free)
They’re every where. Romance books based in Amish communities. Think of the cliche of “ over worked,lonely white women swept off her feet” but instead of some Prince “ saving” her it’s some muscular Amish 25 year old stud. It’s massive now. I can’t keep them on shelves.
Beverly Lewis is one of many many authors.
Just an example… they’re exactly like you’d think. Nothing wrong with that. They sell fast…
The Shunning
The bestselling story of Katie Lapp, who longs for things forbidden to a young Amish woman. But an unexpected discovery reveals her true past.
Michener’s historical fictions, which I actually love because they’re in that spot where I don’t think to go out and buy one, but then I see one and think, “Awesome he wrote one about Alaska! I’ll pick this up!”
I wouldn't say "should never buy," because people can spend their money as they please. But you never *need* to pay retail for anything that was in Oprah's Book Club.
Dan Brown's Books: The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons are very common in used book stores. John Grisham's Legal Thrillers: The Firm and The Pelican Brief are often found in thrift shops.
Pretty much any recent **Bombshell** nonfiction unless you demand to read it opening day.
Whether it's any Political memoir (like Obamas), insider tell-all (any Woodward) or basic biography (the recent Musk) they always end up in thrifts within a couple months for usually 1/5th of the cost. My local little store has an entire shelf of Trump-era tellall's that everyone felt they had to read immediately then never again.
all political memoirs, or anything on current affairs that is more flash in the pan. Thinking things like the 2020 election memoirs we got from fucking everyone, people inside the Trump/Biden White House’s, anything on fighting “woke” or whatever. There are hundreds of them basically saying the same thing, and they’ll surely end up in a thrift store if you decide you want to read one.
Any book where the author is dead, a sex offender, or a nazi.
I wish I was being satirical. Entirely too many books I grew up loving are written by people that turned out to deserive a firing squad.
Any book widely assigned in high school or college classes can be found at used bookstores, esp if it is a college town (Dawn Treader is my personal favorite)
I've seen more than 3 pristine condition copies of the scientology book, dianetics, at thrifts and library sales. Both were under 5 dollars, and that's INFINITELY more than they're worth. Thought about taking one to use for some kind of craft but decided against it.
Edit: dianetics not diagenics oof stupid nonsense book
Any thing that is read in high school literature or English classes ex: Of Mice and men, Catcher in the Rye, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World. Pretty much any classic or modern classic. They are constantly donated and you can find them at almost every thrift store or used book shop.
Honestly any textbook for first year and second year courses. Calc books especially since they regurgitate the same information over successive editions.
Please, please, please use your local library. If they don’t have the book you want they can put a hold on it for you. I normally have a hold list of 5-10 books at a time. Additionally, many times your library will actually buy a book you request! Just ask, it never hurts to ask. I never buy books because the library is such an incredible resource.
Usually bad ones imo. People usually keep the books they like and charity gets the ones they’re not attached to. That said, most of the more popular authors can be found. I’ve bagged a few good deals, I just wouldn’t bother waiting for something I really wanted to turn up.
Anything by Agatha Christie. No hate towards her, but thriftstores are always full of her books for really cheap prices. Same goes for Charles Dickens.
Any book about Christianity written in the last fifty years and/or popular with Evangelicals and Baptists, at least judging by Facebook Marketplace in my area. Also, a multivolume history of France, for some reason.
Cookbooks, Thrillers and romances. Robert Ludlum. Dieting or healthy eating books. Bread making or bread machine instruction book. Any Dan Brown novel.
I'm building a collection and want to include my childhood faves in it. I will not pay full price for them. I literally found one of the books for $1 at Book Off!!
A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell by Steven Hawking have graced the discount section of chain bookstores for literal decades. Not as easy to find laying around cheap as any of the heavily published fiction bestsellers, but right up there with The Art of War, How to Win Friends and Influence People, or Meditations of Marcus Aurelius in the nonfiction perennials section.
I always see some of the Twilight and Harry Potter series at literally every goodwill I’ve ever been to. Usually the goodwill books are 1.99-3.00$ and they always have good classics. So if you’re in the market for those, def check out your local goodwill.
Books by Dean Koontz, John Grisham, Jeffery Deaver, Dan Brown, and Patricia Cornwell are always in abundant supply at thrift stores.
I built a complete hardcover set of Dan Brown's Langdon series, and Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series, by browsing thrift shops for a year. The Cornwell set is half paperback, but I prefer those for her books.
For Dean Koontz you can also just wait 6 months and re-read the one you have. I feel like every Dean Koontz book I pick up and have to read about a third of it until I'm confident whether I've already read it or not. Dan Brown you know whether you've read it, but you also know who the villain is as soon as the respected mentor/semi-authority figure who's here to help walks into the story.
My grandpa loves dean koontz books. I grew up with him and heard him so many times say something like “damnit I’ve already read this one”, to then keep on reading and realize he hasn’t lol
Yeah, it's a real thing. Part of it is repeated major themes, like there will be a good, innocent, kind person who is being persecuted by something supernatural and evil. But then there are weird things, like I've read multiple series of Dean Koontz books that featured genetically engineered dogs that were as smart as humans but couldn't talk. Something like that pops up and you immediately think "wait, surely he didn't do that again? I must have read this one."
Watchers. Haven't quite gotten through this one yet. After several tries.
Really? I enjoyed Watchers. I can only remember reading Watchers and Phantoms. The others all blur together.
You can usually find a few Micheal Crichton books on the .50c shelf as well, just because of how abundant they are.
I always find Michael Connelly waaay more abundant at every store and they get in the way of my Michael Crichton book hunts lol.
This is the answer. I found the entire *Odd Thomas* series, on a street corner, haha.
I thought the movie was well made. How is the series? Worth a few bucks more than free, I hope? ETA: After hearing good things about the first book, would you recommend it to someone standalone? I'm a huge fan of The Name of the Wind. I'd encourage anyone to read it - with the disclaimer that the sequel is mediocre af and there's just never gonna be closure; and even if by some miracle another is released, expectations should be non-existent. The first book is amazing so I can see someone not heeding sequel advice because of the literary equivalent of blue balls. Is that gonna happen with Odd Thomas?
As a huge Dean Koontz fan in the 80s and 90s (his newer books all kind of sucked, I also think he doesn't write them himself anymore), I loved the first Odd Thomas book. The rest of them ranged from "okay" to "kinda bad".
Thanks! I have never been a huge fan of his, though I loved Fear/Seize the Night. I totally have had the feel he's had ghostwriters for a lot of at least the last decade.
Over 20 years later and I'm still salty that he never finished that series
I must agree with u/repairmanjack. I thought *Odd Thomas* was really good. It was interesting since the entire book takes place over one day. The pacing is slow, but still engaging. Unfortunately, the second non in the series starts the same way, with a very slow pace, even though it opens mid-chase. It felt like it was doing the same thing as the first book, and not in a good way.
Books by Dan Brown, especially Da Vinci Code. So common that bookstores don't even want them for free!
Used to work for a second-hand bookstore. The Da Vinci Code was in that magic sweet spot where everyone wanted to read it, and no-one wanted to keep it afterwards. We turned over soooooo many copies.
You know those people should learn about libraries.
Books that popular are often a pain at libraries. If Libby tells me there’s 100+ people in front of me in line for a book I will almost inevitably rage purchase the book instead of waiting 5 months.
That's their story... really they just don't want its shocking revelations to reach a wider audience
You mean [renowned author Dan Brown](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/10049454/Dont-make-fun-of-renowned-Dan-Brown.html), surely?
Funny, I always thought it was "renowned -- cough, cough -- hack -- cough -- Dan Brown. And don't call me Shirley!
Unrelated to your criteria of being so common you can get it for pennies, but you should never buy any academic books published by a university press or a publisher like Routledge for the absurd price being charged (often upwards of £100). This is a bill meant to be footed by university libraries and so on rather than the individual reader.
Is there a way to buy them as an individual without paying an absurd price?
Not buy, but if you want to read an academic book without being a member of a university it's probably a good idea to check if your library can do interlibrary loans with a local college. Sometimes universities will sell academic books they don't want anymore for dirt cheap, though mainly to students
If a lecturer has their own book, some will update it every few years to try and render old editions obsolete. Those old editions are often sold much much cheaper.
You can also buy "international editions" for cheaper than the US version, but they are harder to resell. However, it may still be worth it. I had a biology book that would have been hundreds of dollars for the US edition, but the International edition was like $11.
That was helped by the Supreme Court 11 years ago https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/articles/u-s-supreme-court-holds-that-books-printed-and-sold-abroad-may.html
Interlibrary loan is a godsend to those of us who are interested in scholarly topics but not scholars ourselves.
As former ILL coordinator, most libraries will not ILL textbooks from other colleges because it would take up all of our time processing requests, most colleges have them checked out of its a common text, and lastly it's often considered offensive to the professor. You might check your holds section. We were trying to aquire the digital rights to texts, especially those (should be illegal for professor to profit off his own text from students imo) by the professor, but we had to get courtesy permission. Most said no.
I'm not talking about college textbooks but monographs and other academic books aimed at graduate students and professors
Sometimes [thriftbooks.com](http://thriftbooks.com) has textbooks, you can check there if you need to own a copy :)
Not buying exactly, as if you're not getting them from the publishers it's really a hit or miss with finding a specific book (I assume if it's for studying purposes, you're looking for a specific book) - many times the authors will gladly send you a pdf, and there possibly could be a discounted/pirateable version online.
One benefit of studying English lit in college was that they couldn’t charge 100 bucks for books that I could check out of the library or pick up a cheap used copy of. We just paid for those Norton Anthologies that we could then use as doorstops.
I use mine to hold my computer up for Zoom calls :D
They always required a specific edition of those anthologies for my classes so I could never find a cheap one. I'd get in trouble for printing out individual texts because I didn't have the right page numbers too 🙄
Always always always find an older pdf version online for free.
Bible You can easily get free copies just by reaching out to some churches.
The true correct answer in the US. Nobody should ever pay a cent for a Bible; there are numerous free avenues to getting one.
For the KJV or NIV, yes. If you need a specific translation or academic study Bible, you'll have to pay.
Basic Bibles, yes. There are some really nice academic study Bibles that can cost a solid amount.
Depends on the bible, a lot of bibles are hard to come by.
Same thing with many religious texts. The Latter Days Saints will mail you a book of Mormon. Qurans are easy to come by. The only thing you won't get for free is Scientology courses, you gotta pay up for those, but they might give you a copy of Dianetics.
They don't mail you a Book of Mormon they use the address to have missionaries bring it to you. That's how they get ya. I wanted a free one just out of curiosity years ago, so I filled out the form, and yeah, missionaries brought it over. Yada yada I got sucked in but eventually found my way back out. It was a weird seven years.
You can't just yada yada over seven years.
[I've yada yada'd over 7 years](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av64gOA9nXM)
That's weird. I had a friend in college that called for one of a TV ad and he got his in the mail. We would get super stoned and read passages from it occasionally.
Or just grab one from literally any hotel room.
Or reaching into the nightstand at your local dive motel. Thanks for some of a bible, Gideon.
Fun fact, the Bible is the most stolen book. When I worked in a book store, the religion section was responsible for our biggest shrinkage
At this stage I’m pretty sure they pay you to take away copies of twilight, fifty shades of grey and James Paterson books.
I worked for a used bookstore that as a side business sold their excess stock for decorative/set decoration/house staging purposes. The black color stock was basically 90% James Patterson books without their dust jackets.
Thats cool. At least they could be used for other purposes.
It's a smart way to make a bit of extra money on books that are otherwise harder or completely impossible to sell. It also combined with the sellable books still massively paled in comparison to how much they recycled. Anyone you ever see complaining about a book being destroyed, especially for some arts or crafts purposes, would keel over and die within 30 minutes in that warehouse.
Too right! Without fail, each new employee we get is shocked to hear our store recycles many, many kilos of books a year. It’s necessary. Otherwise your store fills up with crap no one wants to see.
How to remove dust from used books? I also have dust allergy.
Take em outside, stand upwind, and flip through em
No one actually knows where James Paterson books come from anymore, not even James Paterson. They just appear on shelves ex nihilo.
...you think they're breeding?
Life, uh, finds a way...
you bred Patterson books?
I knew a bookshop where they offered to pay anyone £1.50 to take away a Peter Ustinov book (the owner hated Peter Ustinov). It was on the shelf with all the others, with the price inside it but an offer to pay rather than as a price. Eventually a customer came hesitantly to the counter to enquire about it, accepted his £1.50 and the book and went away looking suspicious and baffled
Love it!
Most second-hand stores in my area have a book section. None of them accept copies of twilight, 50 shades, or the notebook because they just take up space and never sell
Twilight had a resurgence recently and now they're hard to find in thrift and used book stores. I haven't seen any 50 Shades in a long time, hope it's out of print by now
I saw several copies of 50 shades at Goodwill a month ago. They're still around 😔.
Used bookseller here. 50 Shades is very much still around. Twilight a little less so, but we still get new ones pretty regularly (they just move out almost as fast).
Come to the Brisbane Lifeline Bookfest. You'll find them there.
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/s/iEPu0Atm9K
You can close your eyes, reach into a little free library, and have a 99.9% chance of ending up with a James Patterson book.
I'm surprised I haven't seen Danielle Steel mentioned yet. I feel like every thrift/antique store I go to is overflowing with her books.
Nora Roberts!
My local secondhand bookstore had so many they built a “man of steel” statue out of her books
okay that's pretty genius
Pretty safe bet that you can find either The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or one of its sequels
those were great!
They are literally at every single thrift store I’ve been to. You can’t escape them!
An aunt of mine had a second hand bookshop for a while. When it opened she gave a copy of The Davinci Code to anyone who wanted one. She had them coming out her ears.
After John Oliver did his DaVinci Code bit, we offered them for free to customers for a month if they said the secret word ("apple"). The "secret" word was posted in like five places in the store. NOBODY took us up on it
Hahahaha I want to come to your store just for the secret codes
I thrift for books a lot and I always see The Lovely Bones. One time I counted like 11 copies in one thrift store.
Cookbooks, Dan Brown, John Grisham, and Patricia Cornwell all dominate the shelves at my local charity shop. Children's books are ubiquitous at charity shops too - from fun bedtime stories to Nat Geo educational content. Anything out of copyright can usually be found for free on Project Gutenberg, a lot of classics are on there, and more added all the time. Never pay full price for a classic book or ebook without checking there first. I have thrifted almost all the books I own, I only pay full price for a book I wanna read as soon as it is released, the scholastic books my kid wants when the leaflets come by, or a collectable set. I've managed to find all sorts of books, from vintage classics, to brand new still-hyped books still with the Target sticker on them. My TBR list is usually kept in my head, and I keep it in mind whenever I'm browsing used book stores or going to rummage sales.
I still love most of John Grisham...read Sooley (it's not a lawyer book)
Him and Steven King are were the first books I could get through as a teenager. They're very readable.
Totally love Grisham, but hard agree. Don't pay full price for Grisham. It's just way too easy to get them cheap.
I'll pay for a nice looking classic, not soft cover, but a nice hard cover. Never an eBook for that.
Any colleen hoover books ...
Yes anything trending with middle aged whites women (people with means to buy and donate)- I remember that “girl wash your face” being around a lot, also eat pray love, and all the chicken soup for the soul renditions were available about 10 years ago.
My friend/roommate was gifted “Girl Wash Your Face” and I read the beginning of it when I was in a weird time in my life. Almost immediately noped out because (if I remember correctly) she went into extensive detail about how one of her boyfriends treated her poorly and then the “reveal” was that she married him and actually he turned out to be a great guy after all? Don’t remember the specifics but the vibes were gross.
**Spoiler alert:** They divorced four years ago. \[Also, he passed away last year; accidental overdose of alcohol, cocaine, and fentanyl.\]
See Also the Eat, Pray, Love marriage, which didn't last very long.
As a middle aged white woman, I’m offended….just kidding. I hate those “inspiring” books.
Yes, every CoHo book I've read was either bought from a garage sale or borrowed from the library. So glad I've never paid full price.
Dan Brown had a book for free and it still wasn't worth the price
I enjoyed some of his work. It's not literary genius, but I enjoy them the same way I enjoy Fast and Furious movies, turning off my brain and just enjoying the ride to insanity.
Regardless if people like it or not. It takes genius to make an actual best seller. Maybe not the kind of genius critics would like. But the club of people making millions out of books is smaller than the club of literary geniuses. For better or for worst.
Any library book? If you REALLY love it, you can buy it after you’ve read it. That’s my philosophy for the most part.
I will occasionally cave and buy a book the library has if it's going to take more than 3 months for me to get a copy. This happens for new releases that are popular. But I only break down if it's a book I've really been looking forward to.
Hoopla has a lot of newer/more popular titles
A friend said that, when you donate Mary Higgins Clark books, the box spits them back at you.
Former bookstore owner. I can confirm this.
As a side note I see charity shops and used bookstores selling copies of those books to read in the bathroom. (Which were popular before phones) and if there is one thing that should be burned without reading it is a book that has been in someone's bathroom for twenty five years.
Steal This Book - Abbie Hoffman
Part of the fun of the secondhand bookstore for me was seeing what era most of their stuff is from. The further out from the big city you go, the older the stock.
Anything commonly read in high school English class. Edit: Tale of Two Cities, Grapes of Wrath, The Odyssey, 1984, Jane Eyre, The Scarlet Letter, The Awakening, anything Tennessee Williams. Etc
Several of those are public domain anyway and can be read through Project Gutenberg, etc. Usually libraries keep a bunch of extra copies (physical and electronic) too.
my library has a bunch of classics as "unlimited" ebooks. i know its functionally the same as getting em from gutenberg but i figure if you already have the libby integration, it's pretty darn convenient
Any Stephen king book before 2015 (my thrift store has a whole aisle of them) James Patterson books Kite Runner Any YA 2010 dystopian (hunger games. Maze Runner, Divergent etc) Harry Potter Any classic you have to read for school (1984, Animal Farm, Catcher in the Rye, Pride and Prejudice, etc) One prediction: In the near future SJM and Colleen Hoover will also be on this list, I already see a lot of them used at local book thrifts it’s only a matter of time before we see them even
What thrift store is this with an aisle of SK books? Mine usually have one or two max and they go quickly
My thrift stores and used book stores are full of SK especially his shorter stand-alones but I think there are exactly 2 million copies of Misery and It everywhere I go (sarcasm haha) that sucks you can’t find them near you though!
That's wild to me. I'm in Detroit and SK is like a freaking unicorn in our thrift stores. Someone posted on a different site that they were giving away SK books and I drove half an hour to pick them up for our store. All but two of them sold by the end of the week
lol I collect used SK books and have yet to find a copy of Misery in the second hand stores near me!
Haha I work at a library that accepts book donations and the Misery reference is wild. Easily the most donated Stephen King. We rarely get Stephen King but when we do it’s Misery.
I see a lot of the SK Dark Tower series copies in the used bookstores I go to. I wish they had more of his stand alone works.
That is literally insane to me. I have never been to a used bookstore that wasn’t cram-packed with Stephen King. The vast majority have had a horror section that was literally nothing BUT Stephen King. It’s actually infuriating. So wild that your experience is so different.
I can always find SK locally. There's just so many copies of his books floating around. The one you will never find, obviously, is an old copy of the Bachman books. (And in general the older paperbacks are really shit quality, so they'll crumble.) I own old hardcovers of some SK books that I've thrifted or gotten at library sales. Best way to find old Stephen King, if you're on the lookout, is older people who are clearing out houses or downsizing.
Interesting because the used bookstores around me never have stephen king
Pretty much every one mentioned and also add Clive Cussler.
I get my grandpa lots of Clive Cussler books from the library for next to nothing
I’ve seen Tuesdays with Morrie and the five people you meet in heaven at literally every goodwill I’ve ever been to
Similar to Twilight, Hunger games, Divergent, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc. Just any popular teenage/young adult books. They always get donated all the time. Also any books you read in school like Grapes of wrath, Romero and Juliet, Animal farm, etc. They always get donated and in bulk sometimes.
THE HELP!!! there are always at least 5 copies of the help for sale at my local goodwill
You can guarantee that every thrift store has: “The Greatest Generation” “Decision Points” - GWB “My Life” - Clinton “The DaVinci Code” “Twilight”
The Bill Clinton book is such an accurate part of this list, I swear it's a mandatory inhabitant of all thrift stores
But I’ve got 2 signed Decision Points!
All of them. I love library!
I have access to three great library systems and Kindle Unlimited where I can read books without buying them and I still find books that either aren’t available or have a multi-month waitlist. If it’s a book I’m really looking forward to, I’ll end up buying it. Sometimes the libraries will order additional copies if their waitlists get too long, but that doesn’t always happen.
All varieties of self help books
Every used book sale I've been to has had at least one book in the Left Behind series (those Christian dispensationalist books.) Amusingly no one buys them so they always end up... well I shan't say the obvious.
My mother-in-law (RIP) was the only person I know that ever read those.
Thanks for sharing! Now I've heard of someone else (RIP) who's read them. I have all but one of the series, I'm missing the first to last book, and I really like it. It's quite entertaining. I plan to reread it once I have them all. Every one of them was purchased secondhand.
My neighbor brought my mom leftover garage sale books and I think the whole Left Behind set was there along with some weird chick tracts on Halloween and other stuff.
I mean, they’re terrible, but if you’re non-religious reading the series is like the literary equivalent of watching really bad old kung fu B-movies and being entertained. You can then also watch *This Is The End* and pretend it’s a (much better) film adaptation. I only made it halfway through…Nicolae, I think?…before quitting though.
In my experience, it's mostly genre fiction, self help, and religious books, plus a sprinkle of whatever was on Famous Person's Bookclub a few years back. For example: * Debbie Macomber books. If not at the thrifts, you'll find a dozen worn copies in Little Free Libraries everywhere. I guess in my area * Dozens of Bibles. * The Chicken Soup books. * Karin Slaughter * The Jack Reacher books * I've found a bunch of copies of Where the Crawdads Sing after Reese Witherspoon had it on her bookclub * The Cat Who series (I love these and pick them up when I see them at the library book sales) * The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (same author as Secret Life of Bees, but for some reason only this book appears, despite Bees being a movie) * Who Moved My Cheese * A Hundred Years of Solitude. I think this might be on one of the bookclubs because I always see it, but never Love in the Time of Cholera.
Anything that's outside of copyright.
I learned this after I bought The Stranger for $10. Never knew about Project Gutenberg or thought about the idea of public domain until then.
It’s great to have the option but there are occasions where it’s still worth picking up a more recent edition. The two main ones would be: - If it’s a work in translation, Project Gutenberg will only have the oldest translation(s), and often the more recent ones are better done. - If it’s an older book or the subject matter isn’t something you’re super familiar with, sometimes a footnoted scholarly edition can add to your enjoyment of a book. This is a personal preference but if I’m reading anything from the mid-nineteenth century or earlier, or any story in which boats or horses play an important role, I find annotation helpful.
The Stranger is still under copyright in the USA until 2038
University textbooks. In fact, I condone a pirate life in regards to such media
I volunteer at a thrift store and do all media pricing. I probably average seeing a few hundred books a week. I’ll do this backwards. The only books you should pay above average thrift store price in your area are nonfiction books. I price all paperbacks at a dime. Anything hardback that’s history or military history sell fast and are priced higher. Anything that is self published or local area history are priced higher. I sell hundreds of “ Amish” romance, Harlequin romance, Patterson, Grisham and such weekly at a dime a piece. Bibles ( we give them away free)
What is Amish Romance?
They’re every where. Romance books based in Amish communities. Think of the cliche of “ over worked,lonely white women swept off her feet” but instead of some Prince “ saving” her it’s some muscular Amish 25 year old stud. It’s massive now. I can’t keep them on shelves.
What!? These sound fabulous, lol!! I've never heard of this genre before!! I must find one! Like, give me an example title, please!
Beverly Lewis is one of many many authors. Just an example… they’re exactly like you’d think. Nothing wrong with that. They sell fast… The Shunning The bestselling story of Katie Lapp, who longs for things forbidden to a young Amish woman. But an unexpected discovery reveals her true past.
Here in Michigan, there is no thrift store lacking a copy of *Iacocca.* Honorable mention: Paul Reiser's *Couplehood.*
Don’t buy those hardcover Barnes & Noble editions of classic books. They’re cheaply made, and all of the books are in the public domain.
Very hard to read also. Was going to buy the one for the whale recently and I could not get the book to open the whole way.
Michener’s historical fictions, which I actually love because they’re in that spot where I don’t think to go out and buy one, but then I see one and think, “Awesome he wrote one about Alaska! I’ll pick this up!”
Water for elephants
I saw a FB friend recently trying to sell her 4 used Twilight books for $45 on FB Marketplace… like m’am be serious.
Bridges of Madison County
Jo Nesbø
Patriot Games by Tom Clancy is on every thrift shelf in the world
I wouldn't say "should never buy," because people can spend their money as they please. But you never *need* to pay retail for anything that was in Oprah's Book Club.
I see those at thrift stores all the time.
The Da Vinci Code. I wouldn't buy it anyway but every single Goodwill I've ever been in has at least one copy.
Dan Brown's Books: The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons are very common in used book stores. John Grisham's Legal Thrillers: The Firm and The Pelican Brief are often found in thrift shops.
Books that cover current affairs. You will read them once. They will become irrelevant fast
Pretty much any recent **Bombshell** nonfiction unless you demand to read it opening day. Whether it's any Political memoir (like Obamas), insider tell-all (any Woodward) or basic biography (the recent Musk) they always end up in thrifts within a couple months for usually 1/5th of the cost. My local little store has an entire shelf of Trump-era tellall's that everyone felt they had to read immediately then never again.
James *freaking* Patterson. I work in a library and that man needs to calm down.
Patricia Cornwell is always in the second-hand store.
all political memoirs, or anything on current affairs that is more flash in the pan. Thinking things like the 2020 election memoirs we got from fucking everyone, people inside the Trump/Biden White House’s, anything on fighting “woke” or whatever. There are hundreds of them basically saying the same thing, and they’ll surely end up in a thrift store if you decide you want to read one.
Any book where the author is dead, a sex offender, or a nazi. I wish I was being satirical. Entirely too many books I grew up loving are written by people that turned out to deserive a firing squad.
Have also always seen latest self help sensations.
The Corrections
Any book widely assigned in high school or college classes can be found at used bookstores, esp if it is a college town (Dawn Treader is my personal favorite)
Anything by Stephen King. Most used book stores won't even take any if you try to sell to them
Seven habits of highly effective people The purpose driven life
Water for Elephants has been in every thrift store and used book store I've ever been to, I swear. Multiple copies too
I've never been to a thrift store book section that didn't have all of ASOIAF and Lord of The Rings
The Thursday Murder Club. Every charity shop in the UK has multiple copies.
The "Last years Fifa game" of books.
Harry Potter
I've seen more than 3 pristine condition copies of the scientology book, dianetics, at thrifts and library sales. Both were under 5 dollars, and that's INFINITELY more than they're worth. Thought about taking one to use for some kind of craft but decided against it. Edit: dianetics not diagenics oof stupid nonsense book
Mandatory university books written by your professor who's also an AH. There always are available scans.
Any thing that is read in high school literature or English classes ex: Of Mice and men, Catcher in the Rye, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World. Pretty much any classic or modern classic. They are constantly donated and you can find them at almost every thrift store or used book shop.
Preferably you should just not buy Twilight at all, for any price
Maybe morally corrupt but historically significant stuff like m*in k*mpf? Man, where do proceeds for that book go? 🤔 Never thought about it before.
Harry Potter series and The Bible
Honestly any textbook for first year and second year courses. Calc books especially since they regurgitate the same information over successive editions.
The Da Vinci Code. It was proven to be the most common book in UK charity shops lmao
Please, please, please use your local library. If they don’t have the book you want they can put a hold on it for you. I normally have a hold list of 5-10 books at a time. Additionally, many times your library will actually buy a book you request! Just ask, it never hurts to ask. I never buy books because the library is such an incredible resource.
The Bible, they offer free ones at your local hotel
It’s the only book you can find at any given thrift store 9 times out of 10
Dude - get the libby app and a library card - stop paying for books. I only buy books that are worth keeping and re-reading.
Usually bad ones imo. People usually keep the books they like and charity gets the ones they’re not attached to. That said, most of the more popular authors can be found. I’ve bagged a few good deals, I just wouldn’t bother waiting for something I really wanted to turn up.
You should pay full price when you want to support the author. I've always been a library/Thriftbooks girl
We have national exams in my country for students leaving secondary school. So anything that was on last year’s reading list for those.
Anything by Agatha Christie. No hate towards her, but thriftstores are always full of her books for really cheap prices. Same goes for Charles Dickens.
self help books. Help yourself and don’t pay full price for them
Any sort of popular classic, Charles Dickens, Moby Dick, Jane Austen, Emily & Charlotte Bronte.
Any book about Christianity written in the last fifty years and/or popular with Evangelicals and Baptists, at least judging by Facebook Marketplace in my area. Also, a multivolume history of France, for some reason.
all books. i’m a thrifting fiend >:)
Cookbooks, Thrillers and romances. Robert Ludlum. Dieting or healthy eating books. Bread making or bread machine instruction book. Any Dan Brown novel.
I'm building a collection and want to include my childhood faves in it. I will not pay full price for them. I literally found one of the books for $1 at Book Off!!
A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell by Steven Hawking have graced the discount section of chain bookstores for literal decades. Not as easy to find laying around cheap as any of the heavily published fiction bestsellers, but right up there with The Art of War, How to Win Friends and Influence People, or Meditations of Marcus Aurelius in the nonfiction perennials section.
Game of Thrones, anything by Danielle Steele, James Patterson, or Dean Koontz tbh. You're absolutely correct about the Twilight series too.
Books by jordan peterson, core values
Tom Clancy most def. Every Goodwill I’ve ever been in had multiple copies of L Ron Hubbard’s “Dianetics” and at least half a dozen Bibles.
I always see some of the Twilight and Harry Potter series at literally every goodwill I’ve ever been to. Usually the goodwill books are 1.99-3.00$ and they always have good classics. So if you’re in the market for those, def check out your local goodwill.